An open letter to Chuck Souder (“Part 2: Are we going up or going down?” July 27): You should be ashamed of yourself. For you in the type of position you hold [with a church] to single out black and Hispanic people just shows what so many true Christians have a problem with, which is the use of the Bible as a way to promote thinly veiled racism and judgment. Shelbyville is a highly diverse community, and you are a community representative. You should uplift all races and walks of life.

Because you are concerned with morality and the number of babies born out of wedlock, I would like to show you how your percentages skew the actual totalnumber of illegitimate children to make it look as if more are from black of Hispanic mothers.

Even though 73 percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers, because the birthrate of black babies is only 15 percent of total births in 2010, the gross numbers would prove that the total number of black babies born to unwed mothers is approximately 427,000. This is using the National vital Statistics Report from the CDC.

Following the same logic and using the same tables. Hispanic babies account for 504,000. The white babies born to unwed mothers, which is 29 percent of the total 2.161 million white babies born is 627,000.

Therefore, the white babies born out of wedlock outnumber black babies by 200,000 and Hispanic babies by 123,000.

Let’s be clear that even though the percentage may be higher, we need to be concerned with any children born out of wedlock, ifit is in fact a bad environment and leads to poverty and morality issues in our communities.
Now as far as the moral issue you so eloquently illustrate. You point to the current administration to fix this problem when you, yourself, advised your parishioners not to vote for Obama or any Democrat because you don’t believe government can fix any problem. But you do think they should only curb out-of-wedlock marriages in the black and Hispanic communities. Amazing that someone so connected to Christianity can actually base an entire article on skin color. I really can’t believe I am reading this in 2012.

So, Mr. Souder, where is the solution? We have enough judgmental people and those that say “woulda shoulda coulda.” I cannot stand people that just stand back with a “do-nothing” attitude and criticize everyone else. My suggestion is that for all your white, female parishioners to donate their bodies to carry these black and Hispanic fetuses so that they do not get born to unwed mothers or aborted.

Because that is probably not going to happen, they can simply adopt these babies if in fact they are married, and then the baby is born to a family that is married and not out of wedlock.

My point is that you, sir, are the problem. You preach hate and judgment, not inclusion and understanding. You don’t represent the Jesus that I know. From those that know you personally, I get the feeling you are better than this, but this article is one of the worst that I have seen, and you should not lead people in this way.

I look for a full retraction and some real-world solutions to improve morals and not just to lay blame on certain groups with skin colors that don’t match your own.